Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Archive 10

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I have nominated Gyeongju for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 14:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC) I have nominated Suburbs_of_Johannesburg for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 14:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I am somewhat perplexed by the conversation above. As we have hundreds of totally unreferenced articles about villages allegedly existing in India, Malaysia, and elsewhere, where is the outrage? the consternation? the worry? the effort? the drama? Once again, wikipedians are debating over trifles - i.e., when and whether an existing sourced article about a place is notable or not - when there are totally unreferenced articles about similar topics that may not even ever have existed. Ah, the power of no structure! Carlossuarez46 (talk) 01:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

OTHERSTUFFEXISTS (existing articles and deleted articles) in this regard due to a lack of clear policy or guideline on this. --mav (talk) 01:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

your citation to the essay WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions has no bearing on policy making discussions. You obviously wouldn't want any policy to be WP:USEFUL either. The deletionists straw man tactics are indicative of where this is going - at one point I thought that we may have policy compromise but some participants are too busy citing irrelevant essay to actually discuss anything meaningfully. The village pump discussion has moved far better than this and has a wider audience without proconceived notions one may expect in a small audience here at cities (note, not settlements) wikiproject. We'll defer to that wider discussion. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:21, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that this discussion should continue at Village pump (policy) as this concerns the entire project and since a discussion there is underway. In general I don't believe GINS should be treated as textus receptus. It is good source and authoritative in some ways but human creations are fallible. I copy edited the Dunderberg Mill article and it seems that it is considered a ghost town. --droll [chat] 04:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Good editing, if some had their way it would have been deleted. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:21, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Should we move our discussion over? copy-n-paste somehow, or make a pointer from there back to here? I regret starting a discussion here when that discussion was just starting, too. —hike395 (talk) 08:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

So goes Wikipedia. Broken discussions everywhere. I'm not sure what we should do. Perhaps create a RFC presenting all the discussions in one place (copy/paste, with links to where they originated from). This obviously needs to be dealt with, as this similar veined topic has been raised multiple times already, and a lot of input is needed. Killiondude (talk) 08:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Carlos, could you post in chronological order? It makes it easier to follow discussions, in my opinion. I just wanted to point you to the "Scope" of this project which is to provide information and a consistent format for cities of the world. "Cities" include municipalities and other civil divisions, including cities, towns, villages, hamlets, townships, unincorporated communities, sections of municipalities, and neighborhoods. So this project does indeed have every form of settlement in its scope, not just "cities" as you suggested. I don't consider myself a deletionist, but I agree with the list format suggested above (fwiw). Killiondude (talk) 18:32, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Having read through the above discussions it seems to me the main issue is what exactly the GNIS term "populated place" means. A quick bit of research, including the GNIS FAQs and other sources describing how the GNIS database was built make it clear: The populated place category means only that the place was shown on a printed topographic map, probably from the 1970s or before. No demographic data involved, despite the poorly chosen term "populated". The place may have been long abandoned by the time the printed map was made. In short, a GNIS populated place may have no residents and may be little more than ruins. Thus GNIS is not a reliable source for current settlements. It is, however, a reliable source for settlements with the caveat that they may be ghost towns or ruins today. Former settlements can be quite notable, of course. Even places that were little more than mining camps or railroad sidings can have rich histories. My point is that a GNIS populated place entry may not be a settlement today, but may still be highly notable. Additional sources would be important--but may not always be easy to find, especially for long-abandoned short-lived places. Searching the web and finding nothing does not mean sources do not exist. Still, a GNIS populated place reference by itself says very little. It does not even indicate a present-day population. Pfly (talk) 09:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I thought members of this WikiProject might be interested in the discussion beginning here on the Village Pump. It is regarding incorporating information from the 2010 Census into all of the corresponding city and CDP articles on Wikipedia. Killiondude (talk) 04:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've been wondering when this discussion would take place. --JBC3 (talk) 11:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

For alumni of schools there are specific citation requirements. It must be properly cited that the alumni attended that school and if no wikipedia article exists for that person there must also be a citation proving notability (can potentially be the same reference).

Is there a similar citation requirement for Notable Residents within city articles? I thought there was but I can't find it. If there is currently no requirement, shouldn't there be a written policy that requires Notable Residents to be properly cited that they A) did reside there and B) that they meet minimum notability requirements (if no Wikipedia article exists that already proves notability)?

--Fife Club (talk) 16:28, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

We've been forced to use a higher standard in cities. No article, QED nn. A footnote won't work. The lists for cities is already huge, even with articles. Need a way to exclude athletes and (particularly) musicians and entertainers. Most of these have few followers. There are a large number of professional teams as opposed to a bygone era; many venues for musicians, including internet, and entertainers have many channels. Most people will not recognize most notables. IMO, that is why they shouldn't be there! Student7 (talk) 19:59, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Part of the problem with notable people sections is that can it be ensured that they are comprehensive? This is an important requirement for FAC and if it can't guaranteed, perhaps an alternative to notable people sections needs to be found? What I have found to be effective is creating a list article and linking to it in the article. That way, the article doesn't need a comprehensive list and it has the benefit of creating a lightning rod for the types of vandals who feel the need to add the name of their best friend, their favourite teacher, and their dog. If there are any very well known people with clear associations with a town or city, it should be fairly easy to mention them somewhere else in the article such as the history or culture sections. Nev1 (talk) 21:29, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

PS. I think it should be a requirement (if it isn't already) that citations should be provided for each person with their link to the settlement in question and their notability. Nev1 (talk) 21:34, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I visited the "fort" yesterday. It is actually a building that was once surrounded by a stockade. According to the guide, the building had been moved a short distance, probably in the 19th century. In any case, it is no longer being used as a residence, which the Fort Ashby article erroneously states. Jafriers (talk) 12:09, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Fort Ashby, West Virginia is about a populated place; Fort Ashby is about the actual fort. Basically, Fort Ashby (which you visited) is located within a populated place called Fort Ashby, so it's a little confusing ... but not wrong. Shereth 17:04, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I have nominated Louisville, Kentucky for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:08, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Currently, this wikiproject has two primary templates that are used to guide editors into building good articles about cities -- WP:USCITY covers cities in the United States and WP:UKCITIES covers cities in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, there are cities all over the world in the other 150+ or so nations on Earth, so two templates doesn't exactly cut it. While the US guideline can help with articles in Canada & Mexico to a degree, and the UK guideline can help articles in other European nations, there's not a whole lot out there to help guide editors working on cities in Africa, South America, or Asia (I suppose the UK guideline could help somewhat with Australian cities).

Perhaps we should consider ways to either consolidate the two primary guidelines into one world city guideline, or develop some newer, regional-based guides for cities in other nations. For example, the WP:USCITY guide would become a North American guide, the WP:UKCITIES guide would become a European city guide, and then develop guides for Asia, Africa, South America, etc. What do editors think about this? Dr. Cash (talk) 20:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Actually WP:USCITY is supposed to be applicable to any settlement in the world and not strictly US cities. It may be that it is US-centric in some ways, but it is in no means restrictive (USCITY is merely a shortcut). Thus far, WP:UKCITY is the only one that has been split off with the express purpose of covering settlements in a particular location. I don't see any problems with creating additional regional variants, although I don't see the necessity of it either; it is, after all, just a guideline and in no way hamstrings editors writing about settlements in, say, Australia. Shereth 20:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

After skimming through the WP:USCITIES guideline to see how much overlap there is, it's quite clearly US biased, although you may not not be able to tell if you have not worked on settlement articles from other countries before. It may provide a general template for settlement articles, but it is far too specific and is no more general that the UK guideline. I think rather than merging the two guidleines – as both provide useful country-specific information that shouldn't be lost – a new, more generalised guideline should be created, using the commonalities between the two as the foundations. Nev1 (talk) 21:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Really? I can only spot a couple of points that are too specific - the requirements to use US Census data in the demographics, the mentioning of states in the lead, and the K-12 schools. The rest of it seems sufficiently general enough that a few slight modifications (for example, to reword "US Census figures should be used. When appropriate, other reliable estimates may be included as a supplement to Census figures" to "When available, national census figures should be used. Other reliable sources for population counts and estimates may be used when national census numbers are not available, or may be used to supplement them when they are more current") should sufficiently take care of the US-centric bias. If there is more that I am not seeing, please point it out to me. Shereth 21:12, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Mostly it's the tone, ie: using American terms rather than generalised ones that could apply to most locations. But to add to the examples you gave above, "reasons for settlement" seems very US-centric (for American settlements this may be easy as they're just a few hundred years old, but taking European settlements, for example, they go back much longer and the reasons for settlement can be no more than speculation. There also needs to be mention of prehistory. Nev1 (talk) 21:32, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, good points. In any event, I believe the easiest way to go about this would be to edit the existing guideline to be less US centric, and then to allow for the creation of "supplementary" guidelines where appropriate. The basic structure of WP:USCITY is a good one for a settlement article regardless of location, but I can see how supplementary guidance for certain areas may be warranted. I do not believe splitting it up into multiple guidelines by region is very efficient; with a good general guideline, users may create supplements when and if they become necessary, rather than creating the necessity of regional guidelines from the start. Shereth 21:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather that a US-centric guideline was made while the current cities guideline is made more general.There's some useful stuff in USCITIES for anyone wanting to write about places in the US that shouldn't be lost. Guidelines for individual countries have their uses, but need to be drawn up by editors experienced in that area and should mention specific sources. For examples, the WP:UKCITIES should mention statistics.gov.uk as integral for writing a demography section. Also, it would allow different countries to address different issues. In England, settlements usually need to address stuff such as the Domesday Survey and the Norman Invasion, the impact of feudalism, the English Civil War, and the industrial Revolution. Some events effect entire countries and should be mentioned in every settlement article, but can sometimes simply be forgotten and the guideline could help remind people what should go in. Nev1 (talk) 22:08, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "while the current cities guideline is made more general" -- there's no general cities guideline currently. There's a US-centric one and a UK-centric one. Are you actually just suggesting that we keep both of these guidelines active, and develop a new general guideline using the two we have as a guide? Dr. Cash (talk) 22:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Yep. (I was going on Shereth's earlier assertion that USCITIES was a general guideline.) Nev1 (talk) 22:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I think we are pretty much on the same page. I'm kind of describing it as pulling the US-centric content out of USCITY and making it a general guideline, placing the excised content in a US-specific supplement. You are describing it as creating a general guideline by pulling the general content out of USCITY (and UKCITY), leaving behind country-specific guidelines. Perhaps I am confused but this looks like a "half-dozen of one, six of another" type scenario? :) Shereth 22:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

If the template is to be altered, how about adding an entry for local media that cover the area of the seettlement. This would provide a reader with links to websites with info that may be useful. As regards the discussion over national usages, other templates offer multiple lines from which an editor can select the appropriate entry for the subject or the version of English. Folks at 137 (talk) 21:03, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:USCITY already has an option for local media, including radio and television. It's listed as an 'optional' item on the WP:UKCITIES guideline. Per WP:EL, links to websites themselves don't go in the article text, but many media outlets do have wikipedia articles, and a link to their website is usually placed in the external links section of that article. Dr. Cash (talk) 21:35, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I would like to bring everyone's attention to these edits. The user is just slapping an OR tag on (seemingly) every notable residents section s/he comes across. To me, this seems a tad disruptive. I myself have placed cleanup tags on articles before, but never close to this amount of articles. Killiondude (talk) 20:39, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

See also this edit where he added it to WP:USCITY guideline. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:45, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

It could be argued having unverifiable nonsense to an encyclopedia is a tad disruptive Fasach Nua (talk) 20:50, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) It may be unhelpful, but is the user wrong? For example this edit was to a section which was completely unreferenced. Notable people sections are a perennial problem that goes unaddressed. They are constant targets of vandalism and can we guarantee they are comprehensive? I propose removing them from from settlement articles and creating separate articles for notable people from district. Nev1 (talk) 20:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about articles that I don't watch, but probably the majority of my edits to communities that I watch (i.e. most communities in eleven states) consist of removing nonnotables and nonresidents. How hard is it to keep these sections clean of nonnotables and nonresidents? I really don't see the problem of them not being comprehensive — many lists aren't comprehensive, and instead of saying that non-comprehensive lists are problematic, we have at least ten templates that notify the reader about non-comprehensive lists. Moreover, we do create separate articles in many cases, but not in all. For example, it would be rather absurd to create a separate list article for Ruidoso, New Mexico (to take one of Fasach Nua's examples), unless there are many more notable natives. Nyttend (talk) 21:00, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Just add the notability exclusion/inclusion criteria to the text of the article Fasach Nua (talk) 21:04, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that a source should be provided within the city article itself confirming the user is significantly connected to the city (not just a link to a WP article that may or may not confirm that fact), and any individual that fails WP:BIO shouldn't be on the list. But if the list is relatively short, I see no need to split them into their own articles. I'm also not sure what to make of your "is it comprehensive" argument for an encyclopedia that is by it's nature a perpetual work-in-process, that seems a non-issue - or am I missing something? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:05, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) I'm not a fan of notable residents sections, but IMO it is not worth getting pointy about. This edit was to a fully referenced list. Most of the time, the linked article contains references validating the inclusion. If not, the list can be edited. Unless the guideline is transformed into completely un-wiki-like, newbie-biting, rigidity, these lists will always be with us. For whatever reason, readers seem to like them. older ≠ wiser 21:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Do we need an reference for the exclusion criterion? Fasach Nua (talk) 21:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean. older ≠ wiser 21:33, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Bkonrad, a quick sample of the articles affected shows that the vast majority contained one reference in the notable people section or none at all. However, a couple that are properly referenced have been tagged. As for removing the sections, I don't suggest removing them from wikipedia altogether but moving them to a separate article where they can be used as a lightning rod for vandalism. Nev1 (talk) 21:13, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

The supposed problem is pervasive. Most such lists that I come across are completely unreferenced. It makes little difference to me though, as most of the time the information is reasonably accurate and can be verified with trivial effort. I think Fasach Nua's main point is not that the lists are unreferenced or poorly referenced, but that there is no clear criteria for inclusion/exclusion, which is a different sort of issue. older ≠ wiser 21:33, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

If you come across lists where it's a "trivial effort" to source them, I sincerely hope you have added sources. Without sources, the information is useless. From personal experience, a lot of unsourced notable people sections contain incorrect entries and it's not always easy to find sources. They're an unnecessary time sink in articles. If a person is actually important to a place, they can be mentioned in other parts of the article. Nev1 (talk) 21:44, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't, because as far as I'm concerned not a significant problem. So long as sources are one click away in the linked articles, I see little benefit and an increase in clutter to add redundant referencing. If the linked article for a person makes no mention of a place, it should be summarily removed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not firmly opposed to including references for lists of notable people in the place articles, but most of the time these lists are of little interest to me. older ≠ wiser 22:00, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm disappointed that you seem to have such a poor understanding of why WP:V is so important. If information is in an article, it needs to be directly supported by references otherwise it's useless. The average reader won't know that the source is in another article (and can you guarantee it is?) so the references are meant to be present in every article. Have you checked the articles of the people in question? Often they're pretty poorly sourced too. But I suppose if it's such a trivial effort then someone else can do it. Nev1 (talk) 22:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not that I don't understand -- it's more that I simply have little interest in editing these these lists of people. If people don't know that more information lies a click away on a linked article, these readers are unlikely to get much use out of footnoted references, which are considerably more arcane and confusing that normal wikilinks. older ≠ wiser 22:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

It appears now that Fasach Nua (talk · contribs) has become "bored" with the discussion, and has simply gone on with adding {{ORList}} to articles rather than wait for any consensus to develop here. This seems disruptive or pointy to me - but before reverting and/or warning the user, I would like other opinions if that is appropriate behavior at this point given this open / unresolved discussion still taking place. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:02, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

If Fasach Nua restricts edits to sections that are unsourced, rather than sections which do not explain what inclusion/exclusion criteria are, they are not violating any policy. It's not particularly disruptive marking an unreferenced section as a breach of WP:OR so nothing can be done about that. Nev1 (talk) 22:05, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

But the tag the user is applying has as its first sentence "This is a list with no clear inclusion or exclusion criteria" - the tag itself seems to be more related to inclusion/exclusion criteria, rather than OR issues.

Even if the tag were more directly linked to OR, I would argue that even if unsourced, several, such as this edit, shouldn't be tagged as being original research as they clearly are not. More accurate would be {{refimprove}} or {{unsourced}} on the sections. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:14, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it could be construed as original research. Who says they're notable? If no one, then it's whoever makes the edit, which is original research. A fuss is being kicked up here about the wrong issue. Are these tags detrimental to the article? No. Do these articles need improving? Yes, they all do. So how best to do that. Make the inclusion criteria for notable people clear. Nev1 (talk) 22:18, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Granted, I used an off-topic example - it wasn't from a city article. I disagree with your interpretation of if it amounts to OR or not, but I'll leave it at that as it's a discussion for a different forum.

On city articles, the guideline at WP:USCITY#Notable natives and residents seems relatively clear: "any famous or notable individuals that were born in, or have lived for a significant amount of time, in the city". If they are notable or not is conveniently defined already under WP:BIO guidelines. Unless stipulated otherwise here, that guideline resolves the definition for us. And, from reviewing prior discussions on this talk page and at WT:USCITY, that seems to be the prior compromise consensus - although clearly a disputed position and not unanimous.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the inclusion criteria needs to be improved and restricted; as currently worded, I feel that WP:USCITY#Notable natives and residents is overly permitting on who to list. Personally, I would rather see it defined as who is notable for their connection to the city (ie: both meets WP:BIO, and had a hand in making significant contributions to the development, way of life, or public perception of city - although those terms would need clearer definitions behind them) - the current wording is, to me, too broad as it permits anyone who is both notable and coincidentally lived in or was born in the city. But that's how it's currently worded.

If we can get a discussion and consensus going on improving that guideline, I fully support it - but from what I can see, prior efforts have seemed to die out, defaulting back to the prior status-quo of the current wording. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

There's actually a current discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Guideline#Natives and residents to try and figure out if and/or how to adjust the guideline. Folks might be interested in checking that out. Dr. Cash (talk) 20:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

There was a discussion on this over at the Village Pump a few weeks back. One of the concerns I raised was how to determine whether someone's connection to the city is notable. How would be decide if the connection is "meaningful" without resorting to original research? For example, Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana, but notable connection did he have to Gary other than being born there? One suggestion I had, which I will offer to this group, would be if the city/community itself boasts, proclaims, or otherwise capitalizes on its connection to a notable individual, no matter how tenuous, than that would be an additional criterion for inclusion. Example. Senator John Thune was born and went to high school in Murdo, South Dakota. He no longer lives there and became notable years after having left the city. However, Murdo has a sign outside of town claiming it as the "Hometown of Senator John Thune," even though he currently lives in Sioux Falls. So, my criteria would be 1. is the person notable. 2. was he/she born/raised/lived in the city for a significant part of their childhood/adult years 3. if connection to the city is simply one of birth, does the city claim the person as a native. If the answer to all three is yes, then they should be included. Just my two cents.DCmacnut<> 18:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• Now Fasach Nua is deleting the entire "notable residents" sections from articles, without any discussions on the individual talk pages. Since there doesn't appear to be a consensus here, that appears to be the disruptive deletion of what is often sourced content. I see that as a problem that may even justify a block. I've left a note on the user's talk page asking for an explanation.   Will Beback  talk  20:48, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. As there's no consensus for the removal, and the user is aware of that, and as the user stopped discussing the issue here and has not discussed it on any article talk page, I viewed the continued blanking of the sections as vandalism at this point and used a standard warning template. Granted, I likely should have used plain text instead of templating, but he should know better anyway. His actions also appear to be bordering on edit warring at this point. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:10, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

After my note he went on to edit war over the material, o I've blocked the account. While unsourced entries and non-notable individuals are a problem, he was going after sourced enties of people with undisputed notability, depsite the explicit lack of consensus.   Will Beback  talk  21:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Alamogordo, New Mexico is undergoing peer review. I have polished the article, with special attention to the guidelines at WP:USCITY, and would appreciate any comments regarding this or any other aspect of the article. You can comment at Wikipedia:Peer review/Alamogordo, New Mexico/archive1. Thanks. --Uncia (talk) 23:34, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The peer review is closed. The article is now a good article candidate. --Uncia (talk) 03:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

This article was recently created by an editor who means well and has done a lot to the Akron, Ohio article. My concern here is excessive amounts of trivia. One section, for instance, lists virtually every instance where Akron has been mentioned or featured in television and film. I would appreciate any help from other experienced editors at the Talk:Culture of Akron, Ohio page or in the article itself. Thanks --JonRidinger (talk) 21:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns with the article which you can see at Talk:Northeast Philadelphia/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. You are being notified as the talk page has a banner for this project. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 06:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process after the original re-assessor had to drop out. I have found some concerns with the referencing which you can see at Talk:Northeast Philadelphia/GA1. I have placed the article on hold for a further seven days whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:21, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

We seem to be having some trouble choosing which photo to use for the lead image for the Berlin article. See the discussion here. Basically one group feels that a photo from 2006 is more artistically pleasing. The other group feels that since the 2006 photo shows the Palace of the Republic, it is out of date and should be replaced with a photo from 2009. Please provide further input. Thanks! imars (talk) 19:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I am looking for advice regarding Wikipedia:WikiProject District of Columbia - Several users there said that they do not wish to have the project's scope cover DC suburbs (using any definition), and one user suggested starting a parallel DC area WikiProject. I argued that having the DC project extend to NOVA and the Maryland burbs would make the project stronger; other US city projects cover suburbs (the exception I can think of is NYC, which covers a city of 8 million). Anyway, would the Cities project recommend having parallel DC only and DC area WikiProjects? Why or why not? WhisperToMe (talk) 21:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

What is the advantage? Since DC is not covered by a state project, a WikiProject is important. But what is the advantage of double coverage for the outlying suburbs to have more than one "place" Project? They are already covered by their various state projects. Student7 (talk) 21:14, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

In the guidelines to writing about cities and countries we tend to provide suggestions that information about the origin of the name / the etymology is given in the history section, and - if there is enough material - that a sub-section can be created. In usage some editors prefer that the etymology details be placed in their own section - which is fine if there is enough data to justify it, and the information may be found reasonably interesting or useful to the average reader. But the question now arises as where to place a stand alone Etymology section. I often find them placed as the first section - ahead of the History section - and there is a part of me which can see the logic of that. However, there is a greater logic in having the history section first, as that is the first section that readers would expect - it is generally what encyclopedias do, and the history always comes before the name (I suppose there may be settlements and countries which were named before they existed, but these must be very rare!). Where etymologies are usually placed in dictionaries and references books is at the end of the entry - and that may be where someone interested in the etymology may be expecting to look. There may be other options as to where to place the etymology, and it would be useful to get some opinions and revisit the guidelines to make things clearer. As a starting point, here are four suggestions:

1. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology subsection should be created within the History section. (If the subsection grows so large as to justify a standalone section, that section to be placed after/before the History section / at the end of the article.)
2. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology section should be created and placed after the History section.
3. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology section should be created and placed before the History section.
4. Etymology - details of the origin of the name should be placed in the History section; if there is sufficient material an Etymology section should be created and placed at the end of the article.

I will copy this to other related WikiProjects. SilkTork *^YES! 10:24, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time imagining a situation where an "entymology" section would grow so long as to warrant the creation of its own section. Given that a place's entymology is arguably a part of its history, it seems only logical that one would find that information withink the History section. If the History section is long enough to be broken down into subections then it ought to be one of its own subsections. Personally I would prefer to see it first (get it out of the way). Shereth 14:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Examples: Hong_kong#Etymology, Cyprus#Etymology, and Cardiff#Etymology. SilkTork *^YES! 14:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If any city would be worthy of an entomology section, it would be NYC for its cockroaches ;)--Louiedog (talk) 14:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why any of those could not happily exist as a sub-section of "history", but to me it's really a case of "six of one, half a dozen of the other" :) Still, if I was magically writing all of our style guidelines I would have them all be made a part of the "history" section. Shereth 17:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer having one rule for placing etymology. That way, no arguments. And for Loodog, there is already a section, "Wild life" for NYC!  :) Student7 (talk) 15:40, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

If the focus is on the linguistic etymology of the name of the city, that is a distinct topic from the history. If the focus is rather on how the city acquired its name, that is a subsection of history. I'm not suggesting this is a good example, but consider Kalamazoo, Michigan#Name origin and Etymology of Kalamazoo. Or many of the items in Category:Placename etymologies. older ≠ wiser 16:05, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Other examples where the topic is more than the history of the name, including theories of origin, linguistic meanings, etc (with various ways of putting the info in sections or not): Buffalo, New York#Name origin, Washington, Tyne and Wear#History "Toponymy", Paris#Etymology, Kolkata#Name, Beijing#Names, Lima, and, a non-city example, Oregon#Name and its main page, Oregon (toponym). Pfly (talk) 18:25, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

As I've looked around, I've noticed some weird ways of showing where a city or town is located. The cities in Massachusetts that I deal with such as Melrose, Massachusetts have a map that makes it very easy to identify where the city is with respect to Massachusetts as a whole. Since most people know the shapes of the states and how they relate to the country as a whole, this is a very good way of depicting the location. There seems to be a ton of articles such as West Hempstead, New York, that show a census map. For someone who does not live in the area (or any of the surrounding communities) that map is useless. There is no landmarks to use to gauge the position. If there isn't already a convention for these maps, I urge this project to draft one. The map like that of Melrose is imo the best type. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 03:10, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I guess each state/province Project has to slug this out on their own. There is apparently no generic help, which is a shame, if true. The worst I saw was Quebec, which is largely uninhabited, as it turns out. So all there was, was a little bitty red dot near the bottom of the province. Montreal got a slightly bigger dot, I suppose. Mercifully they have changed.

Having said that, it may not be the answer to the regularly shaped western states: Kansas, Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming, etc. A part of a featureless blob, still seems like nothing, unfortunately. (Might as well keep the red dot, I guess!  :) Student7 (talk) 13:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't find the map at Melrose, Massachusetts very helpful. At first glance, it looked as though the entire shaded area (representing Middlesex County) was for the city, which of course didn't make much sense. Only when I squinted and leaned into the monitor did I notice that one tiny speck in the map was shaded red. Personally, I find the pushpin maps to be the best general maps for showing location in a larger context. West Hempstead, New York has such a pushpin map immediately below the census map. I agree that census map is not very helpful. older ≠ wiser 14:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Using this word automatically to mean population should stop IMO. "Largest" could also mean area. The word should be modified unless it is clear in context. "Largest area" or "biggest population." Student7 (talk) 16:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I want to make one for Hall, New York. Every other little town and city has one. Daniel Christensen (talk) 00:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

See the documentation at Template:Infobox settlement -- or if you only want the map and not the entire infobox, see Template:Location map. You will need to know the latitude and longitude. older ≠ wiser 21:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Springfield, Illinois has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:57, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Which is the better one to use, "Sister City" or "Twin City"? Both are used and to me it doesn't look good (See London, New York City and Odessa for three different). Is there any consensus on which one to use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.227.58.24 (talk) 08:58, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

As a general rule, use the terminology that is used in the city described in the article. The term "sister city" is generally preferred in the U.S., but I have the impression that the terms "city twinning" and "twin city" (or "twinned city"?) are preferred in places that use British English. --Orlady (talk) 03:57, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought we were pretty much using "twin city" for places outside the US. I thought that Europe, and not just the UK, preferred that. But I could be wrong. If true about the UK only, this would be another good reason to identify articles on the talk page by idiom.

IMO, "city twinning" and "twinned city" sound funny, but I suppose there are situations where they have to be used. Student7 (talk) 13:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Per Sister cities, "Twin town" is preferred in the UK, France, and former Soviet bloc countries; "Sister city" is preferred in the Americas, Asia, Australia; "Partner city" is used in Germany and other locations. If only it were as simple as British English vs. American English ... Shereth 16:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I did read the below. Nonetheless, why not put this in either on the Project Page or as a forked article? It's the best I've read. Student7 (talk) 15:12, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The usage is quite dependent upon the locality, and as stated above, the article should reflect actual usage, and not just what looks good to us. Note that the terms "twin cities" and "sister cities" both have other connotations and so any attempt to standardize the way they are used at Wikipedia is likely to result in further confusion and problems. Best to just stick to what is used by the city in question. Shereth 16:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Would this WikiProject be interested in take up the use of this template? It is a "request box created in 2006 by an editor who was working to add climate sections to articles about geographical regions", and is currently nominated for deletion due to non-use, but the nominator stated he would withdraw the nomination if someone is willing to take up use of the template. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 21:11, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally, it doesn't look like a terribly useful template. I can't really forsee it being used on any real scale. Shereth 21:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Can someone from this project take a look at Template_talk:GR#Too_vague. and Template_talk:GR#Page_needed? This involves adding {{page needed}} tags to a template that is transcluded on tens of thousands of city articles. Kaldari (talk) 20:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I was tidying up the Morodvis article, but I cannot get the pushpin map to work.

I looked at the Ohrid and the Skopje articles, which also use Template:Location map Republic of Macedonia, and the markup appears to be correct, but no map is showing up!

Any help would be much appreciated. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 17:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

• It seems to be working now - I didn't do anything to it since, and it wasn't showing, but it is now! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 11:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Xenobot can help WikiProjects with many unassessed articles because it can a) check for a {{stub}} or featured template and auto tag as such (e.g. [1] [2]) b) inherit ratings from other WikiProjects (e.g. [3] [4]) WikiProjects can set their confidence levels as permissive or restrictive as they like and exclude certain ratings. For example, A is excluded by default. Some projects have also elected to divide their category list into sections of default importance (see WP:CATS/INDIANA, [5] [6]).

xenobot's autoassessment logic only one rating available two or more available auto-stub/inherit conflict notes default Y if only a single rating is available Y if they all agree N do not assess CHI · TOR · BIO · &c. liberal Y if only a single rating is available Y most frequent (highest when tied) SONGS conservative N do not assess Y if they all agree N do not assess IND Preventing tagging with a "deny" statement If the bot is continually tagging a page that is not within a project's scope, it is because the article is in one of the categories identified by the project as within their scope. Either the category should be removed (from the article or the category list) as erroneous or a deny statement can prevent the bot from tagging that specific article. The statement is as follows, where WP:XXX is replaced with the name of the specific task: {{bots|deny=Xenobot Mk V}}<!-- WP:XXX -->

If this is something you want to take advantage of, please let me know below or by clicking here. –xeno^talk 20:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm.... Cambridge, Massachusetts needs to be assessed in WikiProject Cities. if it were to be assesed by Xenobot, I would rather it use a conservative logic, but seeing that it would still get High Importance B-Class, I would rather the assesment be done manually.

--RayqayzaDialgaWeird2210    14:59, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Importance doesn't get inherited - it has to be set by category the way Indiana does it. Of course, this is an optional part of the overall bot task primarily designed to assess the class. –xeno^talk 18:29, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Geneseo, New York is currently a merged article for a town and a village in Livingston County, New York. This is at variance with every other municipality article in New York and the rest of the country: we always have separate articles for separate municipalities, even if they overlap; see Category:Towns in New York, Category:Villages in New York, and similar categories for Vermont (towns and villages) and Wisconsin (cities, towns, and villages) for very similar examples. The merger — enforced by a single editor over the objections of multiple other editors, including me — is that this mailing list discussion trumps our universal practice of separate articles for separate municipalities. If you're not familiar with New York municipality articles, you can read Administrative divisions of New York — essentially, villages are within towns, but there are wide areas in towns that aren't in villages, so this situation doesn't at all resemble a small-scale consolidated city–county. In this specific situation, the village includes less than 7% of the area of the town. Is there any objection to restoring this set of municipalities to the way that every other similar set of municipalities is done? Nyttend (talk) 05:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Concur: I concur with Nyttend's assessment of the erroneous merger of town and village for Geneseo, New York. New York's political hierarchy is very structured and I believe that, unless the village dissolved, that there should remain two separate and distinct articles; one for the village and one for the town.--Pubdog (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I am somewhat sympathetic toward the idea of merging these types of articles, particularly when the only (obviously) distinguishable information is the demographics. Still, given these are indeed separate entities, they should have separate entries per Wikipedia's role as a gazetteer (and for the sake of consistency across New York location articles). Shereth 15:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Articles need to be separate. Too often we find "article creep" where the larger area (metro usually) "creeps" into the smaller article (city usually). Creeping should be stopped. Articles have boundaries and should be kept separate. That one editor imagines them together instead of separately, is an idea that should not be allowed to prevail. We'd get all higher level articles taking over the smaller, with finally one big "USA" (or "world") article!  :) Student7 (talk) 14:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree the two Geneseo articles should be de-merged, but I disagree that such metro-area "creep" is undesirable. Cities and villages only have well-defined borders when it comes to politics and administration, not when it comes to their cultures and their people. Powers ^T 02:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There was a change to Importance ratings proposed on this page ("Slight tweak to Top-priority") that has slipped through, nem con. Did anyone see and think "fair enough"? Or should a proper consensus be formed? I have some issues to the change which the proposer has, in good faith, applied to the affected articles. BTW, other proposals have been made on that page. Folks at 137 (talk) 15:58, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It seemed to me that, from the current top article at assessment, there was some support for adding a few non-capital cities for months. Also, I would say the concern about a North American bias is untrue for this, as only 2 of the proposed additions are in North America Purplebackpack89 (talk) 17:10, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no issues with the proposed change, myself. Shereth 17:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I actually have a strong opposition to this. The page you refer to refers to a "meta 1000", with no link to any page or article or anything else. I have no idea what this is, and using this to determine priority ratings is foolish at best. Any changes made to the importance of these cities must be reverted immediately. Dr. Cash (talk) 19:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe it refers to this. Shereth 19:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I saw that on his talk page. But I'm still opposed to the changes, which were done without consensus developing. You simply need more concrete criteria (status as a capital, population, etc) to determine importance ratings than the "opinion" of a bunch of random editors posting on some "meta wiki". Dr. Cash (talk) 20:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It was up for a week, and you didn't comment. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:37, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record, all changes to the affected city importance ratings have been reverted. Dr. Cash (talk) 20:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, Cash, your strong oppose is ridiculous. First off, I made those suggestions, waited for a response, and none came for over a week, not from you, not from anybody. Second, if you take a look at the top section, from April, a consensus appears to be that cities other than capitals should be considered, with only the initial editor speaking in opposition. Thirdly, the meta 1000 is more than just a bunch of random guys, it requires consensus from meta users around the world, and is not some random list. Fourthly, how is "national capital or Meta 1000" not concrete criteria? Finally, how can you argue that some place like Podorigo, Montegenro or Koror, Palau is more important than New York, Mumbai or Rio de Janeiro. As of now, it's 2 for, and only you against, by the way, so your reverts are currently in the wrong. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that discussion on this topic be consolidated in one place? Either here or at the assessment talk page, but it's hard to follow going back and forth. Shereth 20:46, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd probably put it here, since ppl read this more often; though important information and good arguments are on the other. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:49, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's not forget the purpose of importance ratings: they exist to help editors and projects identify and prioritise which article should be worked on and unless they encourage editors they have no effect on the reader. I honestly don't see the need for "importance" ratings as I doubt they have much effect. Has anyone looked at the list and said to themselves "there's an article there that needs work, I better get to it"? That said, I like the capital cities rule as it leaves no room for opinion, time consuming arguments, or nationalist pride. If it means Mecca isn't officially of "top importance" to this project (not Wikipedia as a whole), then so be it. Genuinely important articles will attract attention and work regardless of their project ratings. Nev1 (talk) 21:01, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Good point about the fact that these importance ratings are specific to this project and not the encyclopedia as a whole. Still, I can't really swallow the argument that any useful scale would consider an obscure settlement of less than 1000 residents more important than one of the most important financial centers of the world simply because one happens to be a seat of government. Shereth 21:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That's sort of my point, far too much emphasis is being put on the importance of the importance scale. It's not something worth arguing over as I frankly don't believe it matters whether half the articles are rated as "top" or just three. The fact that someone believes it's important and worth a second thought is what I find ridiculous. The benefit of the current system is that there's no arguing; it's not perfect, but neither would the proposition to use the list on Meta as it opens scope for more people to come forwards with their opinion about what is "important", diverting time from actually improving the articles that are supposed to be so important. I'd argue that Manchester should be of "top" importance as it was the birth place of the Industrial Revolution, but by the current criteria it's not, so that's that. It didn't affect the article or the effort many editor made to improve it. Nev1 (talk) 21:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Excellent points all around. I suppose that rather than trying to make a counter argument (for one is really not necessary when I am largely in agreement with you) I will simply state that I am of the opinion that the criteria should be modified in some way to be more inclusive and I would support any effort to do so, but won't lose any sleep if it doesn't and won't exhaust any more pixels trying to convince people to agree with me. Thanks for your insight. Shereth 21:36, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If we can't fix it to be inclusive, we might as well toss it, I guess Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If it doesn't matter in determining which articles get edited, then we should stick with the status quo and make no change to the importance ratings. The whole point being is that you can't start imposing some very nebulously-defined criteria on "top-importance" articles, which were probably written up by some small cabal of editors and make that the gold standard. The importance criteria in this project are defined by specific criteria, which is what should be honored here.

It should also be pointed out that Purplebackpack89 improperly implemented his importance ratings when he did it. He posted the proposal on the talk page of the assessment area, but when changing the ratings, he did not change the descriptions on the main assessment page, which still simply states that Top-Importance is national capitals and nothing else. So because it was improperly done, it fails. Dr. Cash (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The other problem if we start imposing some nebulous, user-defined "standard" on the importance ratings, is that the whole assessment thing will quickly get way out of hand and we'll have editors from all sorts of cities and towns trying to "promote" their articles to top-importance here because they'll find all sorts of ways of justifying it. So we need a specific line to cross here for the barrier, and the best one is whether a city is a national capital or it is not. Dr. Cash (talk) 22:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, where to begin? For starters, meta wikimedia is a legitimate project, not a cabal. For seconds, if anybody wanted to add their podunk city to the list, they'd first have to get it on the Meta 1000, which is fairly hard to do. For thirds, we've proposed other criteria to allow big non-capitals like New York. Why do you believe that New York, Shanghai, Bombay, LA, and a few others aren't deserving of top-rating when capitols of countries that are smaller than those cities are? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 23:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Top importance restricted to capitals

Someone just dropped the WP:Featured Article importance of New York City from top to high, on the basis that the WP:Featured article criteria require a top-importance city to be a national capital. There was a discussion of this question a while back (although I can't remember if it was here, at Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria or Talk:New York City) and I thought the consensus was that this isn't a workable rule, although I don't know if that consensus crystallized into a definite change or redefinition. I think the rule's absurd, because many political capitals, including Washington, D.C., Ottawa, Canberra, Islamabad, Pretoria and Brasilia, were deliberately chosen either to avoid concentration of political power in a city that is already dominant culturally and economically (i.e. the country's most important city), or to appease the rivalry of two such dominant cities. As I understand the reasoning behind the rule, the project members were afraid that without some such rule, half the "top-importance" cities would end up being in the U.S., so there can be no more than one top-importance city per country. But if you had to pick one single, solitary city in the United States to be top-importance, no matter how much you might resent New Yorkers' perceived arrogance, you'd have to pick New York City rather than Washington or Los Angeles; if you had to pick one in Australia, it would have to be Sydney or Melbourne (both of which have hosted Olympic Games) rather than Canberra; and if you had to pick one top-importance city in Canada, it would have to be either Toronto or Montreal and not Ottawa. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The capital city of a country certainly has political importance, but using it as the sole criterion for being of "top importance" is absurd. Major cultural, financial, and economic centers such as New York, Milan, Mumbai, Frankfurt, Sao Paolo, Istanbul, Hong Kong, and Zurich are clearly of great world-wide importance and deserve top priority in editing.

Boosterism is certainly a problem, but surely we can develop some reasonable guidelines and quotas. --macrakis (talk) 22:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict:) By the way, although I've worked on a lot of New York City articles, I'm not a New Yorker, haven't visited New York since 2003, root for the Red Sox against the New York Yankees and am not a mindless NYC#1 booster. But as with everything boosterism—or civic insecurity—could obviously be a problem.

Without reiterating my above sentiments I will simply state that I agree with the above two comments. Shereth 22:57, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Shakescene, I have to ask why you think having New York as a "top importance" article for WP:Cities matters? Do you think it will improve the article? Nev1 (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

To be brutally honest, I really don't understand all the rankings and what purpose they serve. Although I wasn't involved in the work that made New York City into a Featured Article (I was working on The Bronx or New York City mayoral elections at the time), I know how much very hard high-quality work was put into it.—— Shakescene (talk) 23:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't really explain why you think that "top importance" rating is important to the article. What benefits will it have? This section exemplifies why WP:Milhist doesn't have an importance rating (and it does very well without it). Nev1 (talk) 23:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I pasted the wrong fix to an edit conflict. See above. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

May suggest a thread called "Let's toss all ratings?". For the rec, I somewhat believe that not giving NYC or other world cities top has an impact on both the credibly of the article and the project.

¶ I found the discussion I was thinking of here. There are half a dozen places where this could be (and has been) discussed, so it's no wonder it's so fragmented and confused. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/Assessment#Priority Ranking. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly, when you think of it, you could make an argument for New York City as Top-Importance as the headquarters of the United Nations. One could also make a similar argument for The Hague as the headquarters of the International Court of Justice, and possibly Geneva. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:44, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

But you could similarly do so for Strasbourg, which is an important city both now and historically, but perhaps not of "top" importance on a level with New York or Geneva. And what are all the other EU/OSCE centers (often deliberately not national capitals), Frankfurt, Luxembourg, the seat of the human rights court, etc.? —— Shakescene (talk) 00:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's toss all ratings

There are many reasons to get rid of the project’s importance rating and few that I can think of to keep it. Does the “importance” have any direct impact on the article? I doubt it. A prime example of the flaw with “importance” ratings is that it generates more heat than light. How with the above sections lead to the improvement of any article? The purpose of importance ratings was to prioritise which articles need attention, but I don’t think it can be argued that they work. The criteria is arbitrary (not something I have a problem with, but something many seem to) and there will always be people asking for it to be widened just a little more. New York’s important, but what about Ravenna? It was the capital of the Western Roman Empire and obviously a very important city, although less so today. The city of Babylon was very important yet isn’t even tagged by this project. The project doesn’t need importance ratings to function, just look at WP:MILHIST. They have avoided this kind of time sink by ditching the whole thing and sticking with simple ratings of article ' 'quality ' ' that assess the article and point out how it needs to be improved.

So let’s admit that the importance rating doesn’t work, generates more heat than light, and should be binned. Discuss. Nev1 (talk) 23:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm in absolute agreement here. I spent some considerable time thinking about importance ratings and came to the conclusion that it is so subjective (to both individuals and Wikiprojects) that it generates more heat than light. It would be more fruitful to work on the articles that you consider to be important rather than tell others what is important, was my conclusion.--Harkey (talk) 14:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree, reluctantly. Up to now, the clear but crude criteria have been acceptable and the ability to isolate capitals has been useful. But now, there is (unnecessary) dispute. I would suggest, as an alternative, the abandonment of "top" = capital, re-jig the high and top criteria (not low & mid as this would be too time-consuming to manage) and add a parameter "capital=yes" to the WPCities banner. Folks at 137 (talk) 14:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll say it again: if we can't fix it (top/high in=ity), and I'm not sure we can, toss it. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 16:05, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the idea of "tossing all ratings" is a good one -- it's really just a cop-out to avoid a heated discussion. However, the idea of modifying the WP:CITIES banner to add a capital parameter isn't a bad idea. That would allow us to keep track of cities that are capitals, which I think is what we're trying to do by incorporating that into the importance ratings. So then the importance ratings could be based more on population -- cities over 3 million or 5 million would be Top-importance, cities over 700,000 would be High-Importance, and so on,...

I wouldn't recommend a simple yes/no for the capital parameter, however. If we could have a few options, like national, state, provincial, territorial, or no, that would help us keep track of which cities are capitals at various levels as well. We should also have individual categories that each of these classes would be placed in as well. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:35, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with a population perameter (the number I've suggested is metro area of 7 million, based on the metro areas article), and with regard to the capitals, we could have have nationalcapital=yes, provincialcapital=yes, etc Purplebackpack89 (talk) 17:54, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

In some cases I can see having importance rankings. Particularly for subjects which have multiple direct subtopics, like, well, virtually any religion, they can be used to indicate whether a given article is a main article, direct subarticle, sub-subarticle, etc., of that topic, and help make it a bit easier to note where given content should be moved, if nothing else. I'm not sure that there tend to be that many subarticles of individual cities thoughl That being the case, maybe they wouldn't be really necessary here. John Carter (talk) 18:31, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

One of the bees in my bonnet is the general lack of focus or categorisation in wpcities. If the addition of a capitals=yes parameter is feasible then maybe we can consider further sub-divisions, much as the milhist and biography projects do. Geographical region might be one. Aministrative subdivisions of conurbations might be another. Don't forget that importance isn't purely a matter of population - international repute or profile is another, eg, Oxford or Cambridge or Versailles or Bhopal. If we are changing things a little then perhaps there are other fixes that are feasible. Oh, and please be cautious with the use of the word "cities" since in some countries this has a specific, sometimes legal, meaning and I have to repeatedly advise editors that "cities" = settlements. Thanks. Folks at 137 (talk) 20:15, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

A "capitals=yes" function could easily be added. It would also be possible to add a limited number of parameters for continents, areas, and the like, but I don't think the banner would necessarily support one for each individual country. And I would agree that more than population and governmental status should be considered. Los Angeles, a city with a GNP that would make it one of the ten highest on the planet, is an example of this, as probably is New York City. We wouldn't want to be too Eurocentric (thinking about the addition of Oxford), but it could well qualify for inclusion, as could all the "cultural" centers of countries or areas. Frankly, a lot of the WikiProject about countries are really just more index pages than countries, and I speak as the person who created many of them, so many might not be that much help. But one option might be to do something like the following:

• 1) Maybe start a nomination for Top importance page like WP:NOVELS has, and "upgrade" all those that get consensus for such, with either a predetermined number of articles to be finally chosen or open-ended.
• 2) Work to bring as many of those articles selected up to C or B class as possible, as well as any others selected by WP:1.0.

I'm fairly sure that would be at least a start for making the importance or priority tagging useful, anyway. John Carter (talk) 21:32, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm being to get more and more worried about the importance rating. If the recent debate is anything to go by, unless there are clear, simple criteria, it could become a real playground. Particularly if we have to come to a consensus over a nomination! Continental groupings and/or major countries (US, Russia, China) would be better than none. Didn't mean to be Euro-centric , just the ones that came to mind (ironic really, as I've occasionally moaned about wpcities being US-centric!!); Jerusalem might be another example. Otherwise, JC's is a reasonable plan. Folks at 137 (talk) 00:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

In essence I support JC's plan, albeit in a circuitous fashion. I somewha feel that using the meta list is an extension of that, as one would have to get it on the meta list (which is pretty hard to do, it's not run by a bunch of crackpots as some have alleged) in order to get it top here; if we have our own nomination process, it should have some guidelines:

• population of ##-million (I say 7 million in the metro) OR historical/cultural/economic significance
• maximum of five in any one country (including the US, China or India) and fifteen non-capitals on any one continent

And if there are nominations, I nominate the meta non-capitals (NYC and LA in North America; Rio and Sao Paolo in South America; Cape Town and Lagos in Africa; Saint Petersburg and Istanbul in Europe; Sydney in Oceania; and Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai, Mecca, Hong Kong and Shanghai in Asia). My thoughts Purplebackpack89 (talk) 22:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Some sort of way to limit the number of additions would definitely be useful, and would probably help make any selection of non-capitals a bit easier. But not necessarily that much easier. One question which comes to mind to me would be whether Cahokia, Chichen Itza, Babylon, Alexandria, and the like, which are historically important if not so important now, would be reasonable for inclusion. John Carter (talk) 22:55, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, Alexandria still exists, and the best example would be Tenochitlan. The problem is there isn't enough subcategorization Purplebackpack89 (talk) 23:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree to Teochitlan, but am curious what you mean by saying there isn't enough subcategorization. What kind of subcategorization would you be proposing? If there is a time to discuss it, now is probably as good a time as any other. John Carter (talk) 23:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

We need sub-categories in a variety of areas. Here are some that have come up

• World capitals
• Historical cities
• By country/region

Purplebackpack89 (talk) 00:03, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, so, just to be clear here, I don't see any sort of category for national capitals, but I do see Category:Capitals, which also contains Category:Former national capitals, Category:Capitals by country, and Category:Capitals of former nations. There is a Category:Former cities, but I'm not sure how to differentiate between ghost towns and what I think you mean, historically important former cities, or how to define "historically important", for that matter. And Category:Cities by country, which I admit is incomplete (Niue isn't there, but I don't know how many "cities" a country of 1,000 people can have) and doesn't separate out overseas territores like I personally would like. Cities by region, I'm not entirely sure what you mean there. John Carter (talk) 01:19, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I think what we should do is to create two additional parameters for the WP:CITIES banner: (1) capital and (2) region.

The, capital parameter would be set to either:

• national (for a national capital)
• state (for a state capital)
• territory (for a territorial capital)
• province (for a provincial capital)

The region parameter would be set to either:

• africa
• asia
• australia-pacific
• europe
• northamerica
• southamerica

If categories don't already exist for each of these, then they should be created (e.g. Category:National Capitals). Dr. Cash (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

In principle, these suggestions look fine. A few comments 1)some continental boundaries are arguable, eg Asia/Europe in the Caucasus and Asia/Australia in New Guinea, so it may be advisable for settlements to have >1 continent possible; 2)some countries overlap continental boundaries, eg, Russia, Turkey, so are we content that these countries would be split geographically or do we assign Turkey entirely to Asia and make "Russia" a "region"? 3)the concept & nomenclature for "capitals" is too north American - few European countries assign the levels of governance that the US & Canada do at state/province & where this happens (eg, UK, Germany), differing terms are used - are we trying to id the government level immediately below nation (in some countries this is fairly low level) or identify a level of responsibility. (Sorry to be picky but I can see English county towns {NOT "capitals") or French departemental prefectures being added and US county seats being excluded - an anomaly).

In reference to the inclusion of historic places - I was previously advised that abandoned settlements were excluded. In addition to Category:Ghost towns there is also Category:Former settlements. Folks at 137 (talk) 11:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

San Juan, Puerto Rico has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Anyone who could help at Akron, Ohio would be greatly appreciated. The article is in pretty bad shape and desperately needs more experienced and steady editors who know Wikipedia policies and the general guidelines of this Wiki Project. --JonRidinger (talk) 02:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Near South Side, Chicago has a Good Article Reassessment here. GamerPro64 (talk) 22:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi! User:UsagiM started a discussion about whether to mention a marina in Kemah, Texas in its article. Please see User_talk:UsagiM#Boardwalk and User_talk:WhisperToMe#Kemah.2C_Texas. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Correction: WhisperToMe started the discussion, not me. I have added it in the article, as my contribution to it, 'coz I think it belongs in the article. The article is about the city of Kemah, Texas. Kemah has a marina (several actually). Like mentioning the post office and schools in Kemah, I find it not more than normal to also mention this marina... Several sources are added as well... I don't think this should be discussed at all, otherwise we can discuss every little thing in each article and then we will all only be busy discussing, in stead of contributing to articles... Starting a discussion whether to mention a marina in Kemah would only be a waste of time and is not beneficial to Wikipedia in any way... That time is better spent on contributing to articles... – UsagiM _{talk to me} 17:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello, members of WikiProject Cities and others. Nightscream proposed starting this thread due to a dispute he's had with another editor at the Union City, New Jersey article. The dispute is over the inclusion of a section detailing notable portrayals of Union City in media. Nightscream contends that these examples merit inclusion because they are sourced and of greater importance, while Djflem argues that these examples are trivia and belong in other sections, if anywhere. Because this applies to city articles in general and not just the Union City page, and because I was unable to find a previous discussion about this in the WT:CITIES and WT:NJ archives, I'm starting this thread. It's worth noting that there was some discussion about this back in 2006 at FAC.

Discuss away. A Stop at Willoughby (talk) 16:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey. The first issue I can see is that the information needs to be presented as prose, not in list form. But in any event, I agree that the information is primarily trivia and shouldn't be included unless the media portrayal had some greater effect on the city itself. Using a local example, the TV shows The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Street were both set in Baltimore. They're notable not simply because they were set in the city, but that the shows greatly affected public perception about Baltimore, particularly in relation to crime, drugs, and poverty. These TV series resulted in so much publicity (both good and bad) and focus on Baltimore's urban problems that the shows established notability on their own. On the other hand, there are some movies and shows that are simply set in Baltimore as a fictional setting but often have little relationship beyond that. In those cases, the fact that they're set in Baltimore is just pure trivia. I'm not as familiar with Union City or the movies that are set there, but I think the same standard should apply to all pages. Best, epicAdam^(talk) 20:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

FYI:Here is the link to the current edit: Union City, New Jersey#Media, which I believe sufficiently covers the fact that some movies were shot in town.Djflem (talk) 21:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

That article section actually has more information about the movie "Union City" than the article about the movie has. ;-) --Orlady (talk) 21:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

[EC] I see at least two distinct types of uses "in the media" (or "in popular culture") to be discussed:

1. City is identified as the setting for some aspect of a work (book, poem, song, movie, etc.).

2. City is filming/taping location for a movie or video production.

In both types of situation, I think the notability of an individual item needs to be judged in the context of (1) the importance of the location in the work (is it a trivial mention or is the place central to the work?) and (2) the importance of the work to the place (did the work strongly influence outsiders' perceptions of the place, is there a local park or museum devoted to the work, is it featured on postcards, etc.?). For a major city like New York City or Baltimore or San Francisco, the fact that a particular fictional character is supposed to be from the city or that a few scenes from a particular movie were filmed there will usually be inconsequential trivia, but for a small town like Maynardville or Oliver Springs, Tennessee, these types of connections may be of great importance. For a modest-sized city like Union City, New Jersey, I think the use of the city as a principal filming location in several feature films is noteworthy. --Orlady (talk) 21:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I like Orlady's distinction between "deliberate" movies emphasizing the area and incidental ones, which I haven't noticed before in other articles.

I'd rather not see the names of stars except for some special reason. People can look up the movie (or whatever) article. Details should mostly be omitted except when terrifically germane to the city. It really is a trivia section, but under an "acceptable" subtitle! The less said, the better IMO.Student7 (talk) 22:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there a reason many of the US cities' articles (Houston, Atlanta etc) don't actually show where they are in the US? I presume this has already been discussed, but I can't find any guidelines/reasons for it. This doesn't seem to be the case for Australia, China or anywhere else. It seems a bit strange to force people to combine two different maps (the one for Houston and the one for Texas for example) on two different pages in their heads. yandman 00:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It's the case for the big ones Purplebackpack89 (talk) 22:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It does seem a little odd, but it's perhaps because the current set up is that the maps usually show where a settlement is within a county, and where the county is within a state. Places in the UK show where it is within a county, and then in an inset puts the county in relation to the rest of the UK (take a look at the infobox of Ashton-under-Lyne for an example of what I mean). I'm not sure if this approach would work for US articles because the country covers such a large area. It would have to should where the settlement is within a county, within a state, within the US; that's probably one map too many. But it's less than ideal that the infobox assumes the reader is familiar with US geography; is there a realistic alternative? Nev1 (talk) 22:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

At times, I've tried adding something like "on the Atlantic coast of the Northeastern United States" for articles about New York City and her boroughs, but it does get awkward and wordy, so it's usually deleted by another editor. I agree, that when non-Indians often have trouble remembering which side of India Bombay and Calcutta fall on, it is helpful to indicate a location even for such important cities as New York. ¶ But, then, how does one tersely and clearly locate an inland city such as Schenectady, Indianapolis, Louisville or Kansas City? The two maps problem comes up when you don't want to mislead a reader about the relative location of a city such as Buffalo or Worcester, Massachusetts, which are nowhere near the Atlantic Ocean. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The original observation is somewhat misleading in the examples it uses, as this issue is hardly US centric; see Surrey, British Columbia or Warrnambool, Victoria or Sochi for a handful of examples of cities in geographically extensive countries whose maps are in regional context only. The question is one of scale. I can only speak "authoritatively" from a perspective of the situation in the United States, but in most cases it is difficult to accurately portray municipal boundaries on a scale any larger than the county level. The situation is different in countries like Brazil where cities (municipalities) are county subdivisions and thus tend to be large in relation to their state, but in the US it is common to find cities of only a few square miles or less. A potential workaround is to show two maps, one showing the city in relation to its county to accurately portray its boundaries on a reasonable scale, and then a secondary map showing its location within the nation, but really there is no other way around that particular issue. Shereth 17:11, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

See here, if you have any opinion on the matter. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:32, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what the protocol is for asking for comment, but I made a proposal on the Village Pump on which some Cities contributors could likely give profitable feedback. In brief, I found the series of articles listing the most populous cities in a country, such as Largest cities in Indonesia, List of United States cities by population, and their associated categories, to be something of a mess. - Regards, PhilipR (talk) 07:43, 16 January 2010 (UTC)